Congress is being blamed for another round of tax increases — just not in Washington.

To keep their budgets in order, local officials across the country — many of whom don’t have the luxury of running deficits — say a dysfunctional Congress is forcing them to resort to the type of tax increases that Republicans, in particular, so fiercely oppose.

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The tension between local budget crunchers and Washington lawmakers is on full display this month thanks to the sequester. The inability of Congress to agree on a plan to avert $85 billion in spending cuts that kicked in March 1 will slow the flow of federal dollars to city and county governments, many of which are already grappling with cuts in state assistance.

Some of the hard-hit jurisdictions are obvious. Residents in Fairfax County, Va., which is home to defense contractors and thousands of federal employees, are being warned that property taxes could rise by an average of $262 later this year because of fallout from the sequester.

“It’s a result of just the uncertainty of sequestration,” Sharon Bulova, the chairwoman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, told POLITICO. “The indecision is what is killing us.”

But this isn’t just a Beltway-area conundrum.

Reduced federal funding for health and social services is sparking a debate in Linn County, Iowa — which includes Cedar Rapids — over whether property taxes should go up next year.

“By the time the local governments get around to filling in the gaps, it may very well lead to an increase in taxes,” said Linda Langston, a member of the Linn County Board of Supervisors. “Then your local public is upset, and it’s very difficult.”

It’s not unusual for local officials to look at theatrics in Washington with disdain. But the sequester is exacerbating frustrations at the local level that Congress consistently avoids tough decisions, leaving county and city officials to clean up the mess.

In Bartlett, Tenn., a town of about 55,000 just northeast of Memphis, Mayor Keith McDonald told POLITICO that he’s holding off telling his constituents they won’t face a tax increase in the coming year — as he likes to do each winter — because of the sequester sting.

“We’re still waiting to see the actual impact to our community,” he said in an interview. “It’s going to be a choice between raising taxes or cutting services.”

Other officials — seeking to avoid the stigma associated with tax increases — say they will instead impose or increase fees for popular services.

That’s the route Mayor Scott Smith is taking in Mesa, Ariz. He is planning cuts in services to keep his budget balanced in the wake of the sequester, but if constituents really want to keep a particular program, such as summer camp for children, he might retain them for a fee.

“If there is a program that the citizens and the city believe is critical enough, one of the avenues we may choose is to increase fees to participate in those services,” he said.

Both parties in Washington agree that the sequester is terrible policy. The dispute has centered on the best way to turn it off. Republicans blocked a Democratic proposal that would have offset the sequester with different spending cuts and some tax revenue. And Senate Democrats never considered bills passed by House Republicans last year that would have avoided the spending cuts without raising taxes.

In considering tax hikes, local governments are “trying to be conservative because they don’t know what the federal government is going to do over the next few years,” said Kim Rueben, an expert on state and local public finance at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “They have to assume the worst. They don’t have that many options.”